Chapter 001
As a Nontraining day at the Academy. So that meant no formal lessons, with work duties. Which in reality it meant, you get to be a personal slave for the meanest lowest ranks on base. Despite outranking them by virtue of a probationary commission, it means in training you have no rank. Makes sense, how else would a subject matter expert share knowledge up the chain of command? So in theory at least, a Field Marshal could be instructed by a Private. T’ would be a great lesson to sit in on as the observer, stuff being the instructor.
So a work day it was.
04:00 06:00 PT
06:10 06:20 Shit shower shave, change into Uniform of the day.
06:21 Move to Mess
06:25 06:40 Eat
06:41 Move to lines
06:45 07:15 Morning routines… e.g., sweep ceilings, polish urinals etc.
07:20 Move to work party RV Location for the day.
07:45 to 12:00 Whatever the hell they didn’t want to do themselves, or invented overnight just to be cruel, like any of this stuff was new to us 18 months in….
12:01 Move to Mess Hall
12:05:12:30 Eat
12:31 Move to work party RV Location for the day or as instructed.
You get the idea….
So about 10:14 the boss for a day, a swarthy rat faced retard of a Lance Corporal, sends me to the Signals and Ordinance Other Ranks Mess (S.O.O.R.M.) to “… Get the Parcel in the Corner…” I’d been there before. This was the same as being sent for the left-handed screw driver, a short wait, a long wait, the Bulls Wool Wigwam… or whatever Quambie arsed snafu waiting to happen they could stuff you around with and try and force the error to beat you up upon return either for a real or imagined failure. Or beat you up because you returned. It’s meant to build discipline if done right it will. If done wrong it only builds resentment. It had been done wrong for too long. So long now that the initial purpose of the exercise was actually forgotten, and what was once and exercise in esprit de corps, had become a formalized system of bastardisation.
So, being an efficient Officer Cadet, on work duty, I marched, at the double to the S.O.O.R.M. as ordered. Removed my hat as I entered. Look to report to the senior soldier in the Mess, relay why I am there, grab the parcel and double time back to Lance Corporal Rat Face.
The Mess is empty. Not a soul. Wait, noise from the corner of the Mess. There’s a door. Ajar. Light and noise seeping from a crack in the door, with the dust particles as they scattered in the almost still and breathless air. Being at work, in training, and therefore more than likely being observed, I make a parade ground sharp quarter turn toward the source of noise and continue at the double. The room gets darker as I approach the door with the noise, away from the only other light source, the door through which I entered.
I stop at the door, stamp to attention and go to knock on the door three times to announce my intention and request permission to “Get the Parcel”. As I raise my hand to knock the first time, the door pulls open, a standard issue Pistol lunges out and points at my head…
Reflex took over.
I forgot.
Oh damn, I forgot.
I forgot that I forgot…
To tell anyone, ever since recruitment that I had 2 black belts. Shao Lin and actually 2nd Dan Ninjutsu. (Thanks Dad, where ever the hell you might be…)
Nothing good was going to happen next. Besides, not 4 weeks back we just did 2 weeks solid of getting slapped and slapping back. It was what the PT instructors called hand to hand training. This included any number of ways to disable or kill someone with your bayonet, entrenching tool, empty rifle and just your feet, knees, elbows, and bare hands. Virgin fighters at the start of this, who’d previously never clenched a fist in anger ended up like blood crazed rabid and starving wolves after that. Twitching for a fight regardless of the cost! Hospital time was an honour badge, more so if you sent someone there! We all still had bruises, some stitches.
So, in about three one hundredths of a second…
Wrist, control weapon, break wrist, break elbow, twist dislocated forearm move to left in counter clockwise circle while dragging gunman out through the door, forcing the gunman down, dislocate master hand shoulder with my knee while controlling the pistol and pointing it toward the door, while still holding the pistol in both our hands. Form half crouched firing position with the forward knee on the neck of possibly disabled gunman while opening the door to clear the room. Stand up, half a pace forward with back foot on the neck of the gunman, to ensure at least temporarily out of the fight to find…. The silence stopped.
Three Sergeants screaming!
Two sitting down, one half raising his hands and looking away from the gun kind of hiding behind his hands, ….as if they’d stop a bullet.
One of the seated Sergeants had actually pissed his pants. Exactly what he was hoping I would do I guess.
Two were screaming stand down! stand down!
The third was screaming in Bengali don’t shoot me, and I mean screaming and crying at the same time like a six year old girl who’s just scrapped her knee for the first time and has never seen blood before! Such a Princess.
Safety,
Close the hammer.
Open the cylinder.
Fuck there were rounds in the cylinder.
Empty the cylinder.
Fucking Hell, these aren’t blanks, they were live rounds. They were live rounds! This had the potential to be quite serious.
Close the cylinder.
Reverse pistol, hand it to the standing Sergeant whose hands were still half raised. Place the rounds in my left pocket. Realise my rear boot is in the right place to twist and break or seriously hurt the neck of, oh fuck, a fourth Sergeant. My heel is between his shoulder and jaw, my toe over his ear.
Lift rear boot. The Sergeant with the now multi-jointed dectadactile limb had passed out and was silent. At least I hadn’t put him in a chair for life or killed him.
Time came back to normal speed.
The Sergeant nearest to me took the now empty pistol, and I noticed the Sergeant who had pissed his pants had fainted and slid off his chair, the other one looked like he was hyperventilating.
Blackness.
I wake up handcuffed to a bed in the Academy’s hospital with a stinking headache and blurred vision and what I suspect is shirt full of broken ribs.
There’s an M.P. in the doorway with a holstered sidearm and a slung Lee Enfield .303 over his right shoulder. Slouching against the wall and smoking with his free hand.
I could feel something on my face. Go to reach for it with my cuffed hand and jerk the bed, drawing the attention of the Guard, who turns, looks In, grunts then laughs.
Using my other hand, I feel my face. Gravel rash. These pricks had dragged me across the parade grounds by my feet after they knocked me out. Yep, gravel rash in hands, sides, under parts of my short cropped hair, back, elbows, armpits, how the hell did they do that?! Not good. This will mean gaol, and then more fun and games. You can’t embarrass four Sergeants in the Indian Army, injuring one, maybe permanently and irreparably wounding four Indian Army Sergeants’ pride without some sort of formal and informal payback. Maybe time to resign and P.O.Q. but I signed up for the seven years. I could easily spend the remainder of the seven years in a cell with the privilege of a meal a day and daily beatings for dessert.
Adrian Bricknell, you might have just fucked yourself well and truly.
3 days later.
Still cuffed, but at least I was allowed the dignity of my dress uniform and not a hospital gown.
President of the Court was the Academy Commandant. He was a Full Colonel. Strange, it’s normally a Lt Colonel, but I heard it was his second stint here. Maybe he swung the post to be near family.
The Deputy President of the Court was my Company Commander. Major Kanarvon. I knew him. I had until now never seen him smile. Not bad in 18 months.
My Defending Officer was a very junior Captain who’d overseen us being taught Morse Code 8 months ago. So I knew him by his first name; that is, Sir.
This was my first Court Martial, of any type, so given my relative ignorance and the possibility of five and a half years in gaol I was nervous but defiant.
I was marched in, handcuffed. Escorted by the R.S.M., surrounded by eight Private soldiers. All armed with Pistols, Lee Enfields and Batons. It was the batons that had me worried. Seemingly someone considered me a real risk of escaping or attacking them.
The Prosecuting Officer read the charges.
Attacking a senior officer.
Threatening a senior officer with a weapon.
Damaging Government Property. That is the Sergeant with a multi-jointed limb.
Failing to return to post as ordered. Lance Corporal Rat-Face, thanks, never mind I couldn’t return to post because I was returned, unconscious to the Academy Hospital after they knocked me out and then beat me up.
The Commandant looked at me and shook his head, then looked down. I still had a good dose of gravel rash and scabbed face.
As it turned out my ribs were bruised, not broken. Small mercies. For now. Breathing still hurt however.
Prosecution presents their case. A senior Major, from Legal Corps. He was allowed to finish. He explained I was a disgrace to the Army, expressed I never should have passed the Psychological Test, should be Gaoled, then discharged, then deported back to the Netherlands, but he wasn’t asking for the death penalty.
Defense rose, stated, the lighting, the prank, the general S.N.A.F.U., loaded weapon, framed their conduct as attempted murder, and that my excellent reflexes and self-discipline actually saved four lives.
The verdict after very little deliberation was that the charges were dismissed. CHARGES DISMISSED! Normally I’d be sent back to the hospital for recuperation, but the Assistant asked me to wait.
Four Sergeants were then marched in with a Rat Faced Lance Corporal.
All four charged, couldn’t believe it. What? Justice? I’d never seen this before, might never see it again.
Rat Face, discharged, no pension.
Sergeant Piss Pants, Sergeant hands up, and his mate. All confined to barracks until I was posted elsewhere. One month’s loss of pay. Dropped back to Lance Corporal, and not allowed to discharge for at least another five years, and I thought I was going to lose this one. Kind of still stunned how it turned out. The only hint that came from the bench was that my Company Commander blinked, as I saluted and retired. Uncuffed. Back to the Academy Hospital.
3 Weeks Later
It was the dry season, and the temperature had reached 45oc in the shade again.
I was drilling recruits, on a dusty windblown parade ground, in Hindi. Even with the board-brimmed, slouch hat with both sides turned down I could feel the blisters on the back of my neck from the sunburn form. I was just standing in the front barking orders, correcting errors. Pistol on belt, not shouldering a rifle on command, or stamping to the order; and still, the trickle of tickle sweat screaming at me to scratch, wipe, or call a break, but protocol dismissed such luxury and comfort.
They were good enough and had earned a break, but that’s not the point of drill. Drill is drill and it’s there to build discipline and reflex, strength and calluses; and not to be rewarded with tea and biscuits.
This was an in between job.
I’d just completed officer training, and although the results were out, postings and commissions weren’t in. Other cadets had families or friends to go and see. Not me, not nearby, so I stayed, worked, built up some small savings, built up some time that might add to leave if it did not dissolve upon posting or at the whim of a Commander or a job.
I could hear laughter in the distance, not quite the distance. Growing louder. Peripherally I could see a group of four men swaggering and chatting as they headed to the Officer’s Mess. As they walked past I picked up that they were laughing at me. … No not at me, near me. Ah, they seemed to be amused at my use of Hindi. Apparently I swore at the troopers with a Bengali accent while correcting errors. I didn’t get it. They were Bengali, why not use a Bengali accent, it eases communication and might even gain a little respect for me instead of the rank. Ting! The joke clicked. Apparently being a Dutch citizen using Hindi with a Bengali accent is funny…. somehow… I still don’t get the punch line.
Four days later.
Commissioned. (2nd Lt Adrian Bricknell) Signal Corps, Posted, Nepal, Gurkha Rifle Battalion, but induction training before posting, damn that means altitude training. Can’t help bad luck, but you can’t lose them all either.
Chapter 002 is coming soon…